Posted: Sun 06 Jul 2008, 20:17 Post subject:
Make puppy more "professional"Subject description: some ideas i got from using pc-bsd

Yesterday I installed pc-bsd just to try out something new. Overall it's slow (KDE) but everything works so smoothly. Puppy is missing this polished feeling. And I think this is what stops a lot of people from using Puppy. First of all: package management.
Click on desktop icon, go to repository (http://pbidir.com), find nice package, download, install. Sure this doesn't sound any different to puppy, but it is. First of all the online repository is used instead of a package manager. This allows you to browse through the packages and read some information about them. What is it, what does it do. Then you just choose your version and save it to the disk. Much simpler than what puppy does, you don't need a special program, just your browser. And you know what your installing.
Then when you install the program there is a graphical installer that shows the progress of the install with a loading bar. In puppy I sometimes wonder whether it's installing at all! A simple thing like that makes a lot of difference and I think it would make puppy look much more professional.
Talking about making puppy look professional, there is another thing, the resizing of windows. For example the network wizard. Open window, click. Window closes, opens new window of a different size and shape, click. Window closes, opens new window of a different size and shape. And so on. It would look a lot better if they all opened in the same window.
All just little things, but they would make puppy so much more betterer

Keep up the good work guys! Puppy is still my number one os!

thomas_________________An expert is just a beginner with experience.
Shamelessly representing TdeM!

I agree about PC-Bsd,...as I used it for quite a while. I really does seem very clean-cut, sharp, professional,...
But then I found out that there simply was no driver available for my printer (no matter what I tried to do). And there were only about 200 software (PBI) "Push-Button_Installation" packages available. To get any more (or anything else than what is offered) you must learn how to do it the FreeBsd way. This is some-what confusing, and time-consuming for older machines.

Puppy linux,.....altho perhaps not as "professional",...does just about everything I needed. The printer set-up with no problems. Software downloads and installs in a timely manner. Even the desktop (wallpaper, icons, etc. etc.) are completely customize-able! ("EZpup" works wonders for desktops).
And Puppy is a lot faster. Also,...I had FireFox3 installed in Puppy, even before they had offered it as a "PBI" in PC-Bsd. (So Puppy is actually more "up-to-date"on some software)....But the idea of progress bars would be a nice touch,...
But I usually use the "Downthemall" download manager (addon) in FireFox3 to download software from the repository sites,........and that manager shows the progress,..etc. etc. of the download.

i really wish there could be a centralized website where users can fetch pet packages...
It is really time consuming to search in the forums for packages..
Most of the time i spend like 10 minutes to find a package to install, take amsn, i had to scroll 10 messages before i got the link to install...then it didn't work, and had to read a few msg more to find it needed tcl/tk, so i installed it, but didn't work...
in another post there was a link to a newer tcl/tk, installing this fixed everything.
but it was HARD to find all the informations needed!
a package repository is needed_________________--
/sbin/Nevermore

In the mean time I would settle for a page(s) with links. Sort of a catalog. Firefox has a nice link checker addon that could be used to keep broken ones out. Perhaps volunteers to help maintain it? I would be willing to help.

I use macpup at http://macpup.org/ which I think is the prettiest version of Puppy so far and looks very! polished.

A while back there was an effort at http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=5448 to make some sort of catalogue. Not sure what happened to that.

What makes Puppy so charming for me is that not everything works at once. Every day I love checking the forum to see if anyone has packed some new and exciting program or update and I also love following the threads to see how people all over the world are pitching in to help fix any problems. I spent quite a while figuring out how to use the open office sfs file in MacPup and was pretty proud of myself when I finally figured it out. Very rarely I use Ubuntu and there installing programs is just too easy. No interesting challenges or anything new to learn and grow from. Just click and install. Boring!

I should have helped more with testing and so forth but it's summer holidays here and Norway is frying so I'm too busy sweating.

What you have here is a community web site with all of the features you are requesting, including a package repository. Now all that is required is to ensure the packages you want to see are included. Most already are, but some aren't.

Hope that helps._________________Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't!
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

I only get "This folder is empty" there with Firefox and JavaScript enabled.

So do I, now Works if you follow the tree from www.puppylinux.org > downloads > software._________________Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't!
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

Works fine in Opera if you follow the trail. However, that just seems to be some of the dotpups.de packages. And they are all dotpups. Puppy 4 doesn't even really support them anymore and I try to avoid them. But I think that the wiki could be used very effectively. The current layout is stupid. Theres

Dot Pets
Dot Pups
Pre-Installed
SFSs
Various

Weird. I wouldn't know where to start. SO. What if we named the Applications menu to Software(makes more sense) And then added pages for every category (maybe the same ones as in the puppy menu eg fun, Internet, Multimedia) And then everyone who makes a package could add it to a relevant page. Just an idea._________________An expert is just a beginner with experience.
Shamelessly representing TdeM!

But I also see that there are softwareversions for different puppies on the forum, like "works on 3.1 not 4". First you would have to list the different puppy original versions and then distros like MacPup and WNOP. Then only software relevant to the distros would be listed and the dotpup verses dotpet problem would solve itself. Each distro maker should list the software he recommends and knows will work on his distro and keep all the software updated. I wish it was possible to use just .sfs.

I think that the wiki could be used very effectively. The current layout is stupid..

It is a work in progress. The pages mentioned have been ported from the old wiki and only contain applications put there by their developers.

HairyWill is doing a great job of organising the new wiki, and any assistance would be greatly appreciated. The objective is to have a repository that is easy to navigate, like the one pointed to earlier.

Yes, that only contains dotpups ... now ... but it wouldn't be a difficult thing to include dotpets as well. prit1 did the PHP programming for the list, so he would be the best one to suggest how best to include dotpets, especially those in caneri's comprehensive mirror directory.

Hope that helps._________________Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't!
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou cannot attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forum